Israel has demolished at least 41 structures, including an elementary school, in one of the villages in the West Bank, leaving dozens of people homeless, the UN said. The current destruction trend is one of the highest on record in the West Bank since 2009.

The latest demolition by the Israeli Civil Administration in Khirbet Tana, on the outskirts of Nablus city, "displaced ten families with 36 members, including 11 children, and affected the livelihoods of five additional families," Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) for occupied Palestinian territory said in a statement.

Khirbet Tana, a community of some 250 relying on herding and agriculture for their livelihood, is now left practically with no infrastructure. All in all, the destruction included 11 homes, five common bathrooms, one kitchen and 18 farming structures. Two traditional ovens and one solar system, all used for communal living were also destroyed.

One of the demolished properties was an elementary school building which taught nine students. Twelve of the structures belonged to the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian Red Crescent.

"These structures were demolished/damaged by Israeli forces due to lack of Israeli-issued building permits in Khirbet Tana, located in a closed military zone," OCHA explained in their Facebook post.

Because of the agricultural community's close proximity to the IDF's training "firing zone", Palestinians are repeatedly denied building permits.

According to the UN, around 18 percent of the West Bank is considered to be "firing zones" by the Israeli authorities, affecting some 38 Palestinian communities within these areas. Yet structures are continued to be built and regularly taken down.

"Since the beginning of 2016, the Israeli forces have destroyed or dismantled 323 homes and other structures across the West Bank... displacing almost 440 Palestinians," OCHA said, adding that more than half of those left homeless are children.

_________________"Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend." - Bruce Lee
"Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth." - Buddha

Israel is moving forward with plans to drill for oil in the occupied Golan Heights, despite warnings that the move violates international law.

For the last year, Afek, an Israeli subsidiary of the US firm Genie Energy, has undertaken exploratory drilling in the Golan. Afek believes there is a vast reservoir of oil under Syria's Golan that could supply all of Israel's energy needs.

In September 2015, Afek announced it had discovered its first oil reservoir at one of the sites where it had been drilling. Last month, the company was granted the go-ahead to conduct more drilling in the Golan by the Israeli authorities.

In response, Palestinian legal rights group Adalah and Al-Marsad, the Arab Human Rights Center in the Golan Heights, wrote to Yuval Steinitz, Israel's infrastructure minister, demanding that the drilling permits be withdrawn. In the letter, attorneys Suhad Bishara and Karama Abu Saleh reminded Steinitz that international law requires that residents of the Golan be able to control and benefit from the land's resources.

Population expelled

In 1967, Israel occupied Syria's Golan Heights, expelling most of the Syrian population.

Approximately 130,000 Syrians were driven out and most of the Golan's 200 villages destroyed, according to a 2010 investigation by the Tel Aviv newspaper Haaretz.

Today, 22,000 Syrians belonging to the Druze minority community remain amid a similar number of Jewish settlers. The settlers are spread out across 30 settlements, all of which are illegal under international law.

In 1981, Israel formally annexed the territory but governments around the world, including the United States, consider that annexation null and void.

Quote:

United Nations Security Council Resolution 497
DECEMBER 17, 1981

The Security Council,

Having considered the letter of 14 December 1981 from the Permanent Representative of the Syrian Arab Republic contained in document S/14791,

Reaffirming that the acquisition of territory by force is inadmissible, in accordance with the United Nations Charter, the principles of international law, and relevant Security Council resolutions,

1. Decides that the Israeli decision to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights is null and void and without international legal effect;

2. Demands that Israel, the occupying Power, should rescind forthwith its decision;

3. Determines that all the provisions of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 12 August 1949 continue to apply to the Syrian territory occupied by Israel since June 1967;

4. Requests the Secretary-General to report to the Security Council on the implementation of this resolution within two weeks and decides that in the event of non-compliance by Israel, the Security Council would meet urgently, and not later than 5 January 1982, to consider taking appropriate measures in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.

In 2006, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution that reaffirmed what it called the "inalienable rights" of the Arab population in the Golan over its natural resources.As the occupying power, Bishara and Abu Saleh write, Israel is "prohibited from altering, transferring or confiscating immovable properties," as well as looting the Golan's resources.

The 1907 Hague Regulations, a cornerstone of international law, state that an occupying power must "safeguard the capital of these properties." Stealing resources from an occupied territory constitutes the crime of pillage.

But in December 2011, Israel's high court ruled that Israel's occupation is unique and not bound by the laws against pillage.Indeed, Israel has already made profitable use of the Golan's agricultural and water resources.As journalist Jonathan Cook reported recently, the company behind the drilling expedition may have its own ideological motivations for the oil venture.

"Depths of darkness"

The chairperson of Afek is Effie Eitam, a far-right former politician and military general, who is an Israeli settler in the Golan.

Eitam has previously ordered the beating of Palestinians, some of whom have died as a result. He has also made a series of racist comments telling Jeffrey Goldberg of The New Yorker that Palestinians are "creatures who came out of the depths of darkness."

"We will have to kill them all," he said. At that time, in 2004, Eitam was Israel's housing minister.The members of the strategic advisory board of Afek's parent company include Dick Cheney, the former US vice-president, the media tycoon Rupert Murdoch and Larry Summers, the former secretary of the US treasury.

The last year has seen Israel attempt to intensify its grip on the Golan Heights, while Syria is consumed by bloodshed and war. Irael has offered significant financial incentives to its Jewish citizens to settle in the Golan and politicians have sought the world's recognition of its annexation of the occupied territory.

At a meeting between Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, and Barack Obama, the US president, last November, Netanyahu reportedly suggested that the US change its position on the status of the Golan Heights in light of Syria's civil war.

According to media reports, Netanyahu argued that because Syria is likely to be divided in the future, Israel's rule over the Golan should be recognized as legitimate.

Last summer, Israel's education minister Naftali Bennett, who leads the far right Habeyit Hayehudi (Jewish Home) party, called on "the entire world" to "recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights."

Since 2011, President Bashar al-Assad has defended his rule against rebel factions, including Islamic State and affiliates of al-Qaida.Israel has assisted the opposition to Assad by attacking areas under his force's control and providing assistance to Syrian opposition forces, including Jabhat al-Nusra, an affiliate of al-Qaida.

_________________"Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend." - Bruce Lee
"Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth." - Buddha

Last edited by Southpark Fan on Tue Mar 15, 2016 6:28 am; edited 3 times in total

Good digging South Park, this could explain a lot, and it seems already as if Israel is already shipping oil from ISIs held territory in lieu of the Golan find.
And like you point out, they only see maps and dollar signs, not the folk living on the land.
Once we lose our connection to our roots through the land, we become detached, living only in our mind, where the practicalities are lost and anything can happen.

The Jewish medical charity United Hatzalah was at Brussels airport when the explosions took place on 22 March 2016. This Palestinian shot dead by the Israelis appears to have been refused treatment by the medics of United Hatzalah.

Quote:

After Thursday’s execution of a wounded young Palestinian man and his friend (who bled to death), was captured on tape, many details started emerging, including the involvement of an Israeli military medic in the crime.

In one of the videos that captured this extrajudicial assassination of the already seriously wounded, completely incapacitated Palestinian, the sound of an Israeli colonialist settler, who is also a medic and a cameraman, could be heard saying, “He is not dead… shoot him in the head.”

The second video shows an Israeli soldier executing the wounded Palestinian, Abdul-Fattah Sharif, with a gunshot to the head, after conspiring with an Israeli colonialist settler to drive his van forward to block surveillance cameras and prevent onlookers from documenting the crime. The soldiers and settler did not see the Palestinian who was filming from an upstairs window.

The Israeli medics did not attempt any first aid on the two Palestinians, leaving one of them to bleed to death and executing the other.

Issa Amro, the coordinator of the Youth against Settlements Coalition, said what happened “is clear proof that the Israeli soldiers and the medics conspire and cooperate in executing the Palestinians.”

"The fanatic Israeli colonialist settler medic, Ofer Yohanna, appeared in many videos prior to this incident, constantly delaying any medical help to wounded Palestinians," Amro added, "This is what also happened in the cases of Hadeel Hashlamoun and the Sa’id al-Atrash, who were both killed, and Yasmeen az-Zaro, who was injured."

He added that the Palestinians are now also suspecting that Israeli medics have killed wounded Palestinians, while transporting them in ambulances, including the case of Tareq Natsha, who did not suffer a serious injury, but died in an Israeli ambulance.”

"Such incidents show the mutual roles between the soldiers, medics, police and the settlers," Amro said, "They seem to be implementing orders from higher up in the government and leadership, to assassinate wounded Palestinians."

He added that the investigations conducted by the Israeli army are inaccurate and cannot be fair, because the military should not be allowed to investigate itself. He says this is especially true in this case, where the investigators and the culprit soldiers are colleagues, often serving together.

"They protect each other; these investigations are not fair, and are not transparent, while the outcome of such investigation cannot be trusted," Amro added, "One of these cases in Hadeel al-Hashlamoun. The army admitted that the soldiers could have arrested her, instead of killing her, as she did not pose any direct threat, yet, she was shot with more than 15 live rounds." No soldier was charged with any misconduct in the case.

Amro called on the international community to hold Israel accountable for its crimes, since there have been many extra-judicial executions over the past five months, and urged Palestinians to continue to document all conducts of the army, especially since those videos have been proven to be very effective in exposing Israeli crimes.

It is worth mentioning that dozens of extremist Israeli colonialist settlers marched, on Sunday at night, calling on the Israeli government to release the soldier who executed Abdul-Fattah Sharif last Thursday in Hebron.

They gathered in Tal Romeida neighborhood, in the center of Hebron city, while chanting racist slogans, including “Death to Arabs”. They demanded the unconditional release of the soldier.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted on Sunday to the shooting of a wounded Palestinian at point-blank range in the southern occupied West Bank city of Hebron earlier this week, stating that any questioning of the Israeli army’s moral integrity was "outrageous and unacceptable."

Israeli society faces a watershed in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: If this incident is to pass without a firm conviction of the soldier involved and his commanders, together with an independent inquiry into the lax rules of engagement of the IDF, a dangerous, notorious, and graphic precedent will be set. The precedent will solidify the complete dehumanization of Palestinians and pave the way for further ethnic cleansing of the West Bank and even genocide, en route toward the messianic fantasy of Greater Israel.

A civilized society is comprised of a collective of people who share a common moral fabric, which is held together by taboos at its extremes. The moral boundaries define the mindset at the center, which represents the majority of the society's people. These boundaries are typically codified by laws and the practices of enforcement. For example, the United States constitution defines the rights and restrictions and it is the evolving interpretation and enforcement of these by which people are either included or excluded from the American collective.

Last Thursday, March 24th, an Israel defense force (IDF) soldier was filmed executing a wounded Palestinian man alleged to have carried out a stabbing attack against IDF soldiers in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood of Hebron. The videographer responsible for the filming is Imad Abu Shamsiya, a Palestinian shoemaker who has since received death threats and intimidation from extreme right-wing Israeli settlers with the prospect of a potential lawsuit. Though the incident is part of a wave of extrajudicial killings of Palestinians carried out by Israeli soldiers, this particular case is different. Here, the film unambiguously shows that the wounded Palestinian man did not present a danger to his surrounding. Quite shockingly, not only does the film implicate the executioner; it also shows his IDF comrades as completely unfazed by the incident, including medical personnel. What's more, the soldier has received a wave of public support that politicians from the right-wing have seized as an opportunity to further erode the moral fabric of Israeli society in a bid to serve their political and ideological interests.

But what is the significance of yet another injustice in an endless list of those committed as a result of the occupation? While cold-blooded murder is an "official" taboo for the "most moral army in the world", last week's execution and Israeli society's response to it may serve as a milestone on the long and ugly road toward complete dehumanization of Palestinians and the resulting collapse of Israeli society.

The Jewish medical charity United Hatzalah was at Brussels airport when the explosions took place on 22 March 2016. This Palestinian shot dead by the Israelis appears to have been refused treatment by the medics of United Hatzalah.

Quote:

After Thursday’s execution of a wounded young Palestinian man and his friend (who bled to death), was captured on tape, many details started emerging, including the involvement of an Israeli military medic in the crime.

In one of the videos that captured this extrajudicial assassination of the already seriously wounded, completely incapacitated Palestinian, the sound of an Israeli colonialist settler, who is also a medic and a cameraman, could be heard saying, “He is not dead… shoot him in the head.”

The second video shows an Israeli soldier executing the wounded Palestinian, Abdul-Fattah Sharif, with a gunshot to the head, after conspiring with an Israeli colonialist settler to drive his van forward to block surveillance cameras and prevent onlookers from documenting the crime. The soldiers and settler did not see the Palestinian who was filming from an upstairs window.

The Israeli medics did not attempt any first aid on the two Palestinians, leaving one of them to bleed to death and executing the other.

Issa Amro, the coordinator of the Youth against Settlements Coalition, said what happened “is clear proof that the Israeli soldiers and the medics conspire and cooperate in executing the Palestinians.”

"The fanatic Israeli colonialist settler medic, Ofer Yohanna, appeared in many videos prior to this incident, constantly delaying any medical help to wounded Palestinians," Amro added, "This is what also happened in the cases of Hadeel Hashlamoun and the Sa’id al-Atrash, who were both killed, and Yasmeen az-Zaro, who was injured."

He added that the Palestinians are now also suspecting that Israeli medics have killed wounded Palestinians, while transporting them in ambulances, including the case of Tareq Natsha, who did not suffer a serious injury, but died in an Israeli ambulance.”

"Such incidents show the mutual roles between the soldiers, medics, police and the settlers," Amro said, "They seem to be implementing orders from higher up in the government and leadership, to assassinate wounded Palestinians."

He added that the investigations conducted by the Israeli army are inaccurate and cannot be fair, because the military should not be allowed to investigate itself. He says this is especially true in this case, where the investigators and the culprit soldiers are colleagues, often serving together.

"They protect each other; these investigations are not fair, and are not transparent, while the outcome of such investigation cannot be trusted," Amro added, "One of these cases in Hadeel al-Hashlamoun. The army admitted that the soldiers could have arrested her, instead of killing her, as she did not pose any direct threat, yet, she was shot with more than 15 live rounds." No soldier was charged with any misconduct in the case.

Amro called on the international community to hold Israel accountable for its crimes, since there have been many extra-judicial executions over the past five months, and urged Palestinians to continue to document all conducts of the army, especially since those videos have been proven to be very effective in exposing Israeli crimes.

It is worth mentioning that dozens of extremist Israeli colonialist settlers marched, on Sunday at night, calling on the Israeli government to release the soldier who executed Abdul-Fattah Sharif last Thursday in Hebron.

They gathered in Tal Romeida neighborhood, in the center of Hebron city, while chanting racist slogans, including “Death to Arabs”. They demanded the unconditional release of the soldier.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted on Sunday to the shooting of a wounded Palestinian at point-blank range in the southern occupied West Bank city of Hebron earlier this week, stating that any questioning of the Israeli army’s moral integrity was "outrageous and unacceptable."

Israeli information center for human rights in 1948 Occupied Palestine B'Tselem documented the execution of a Palestinian youth, Abdulfattah al-Sharif, by an Israeli soldier while he was on the ground after being shot by Israeli gunfire in al-Khalil city.

A video recorded by a field researcher at the Israeli center showed that the injured Palestinian was moving while a soldier stepped forward and shot him directly in the head from a close distance leading to his immediate death.

B'Tselem said, in a press statement, that the video, which was taken by Emad Abu Shamsiya, showed the neglect of Israeli soldiers and medics who were present at the scene. Israeli medics, however, offered aid to the Israeli soldier whose injury was slighter than the injury of martyr Sharif.

Palestinian Ministry of Health declared the martyrdom of two Palestinian youths Thursday morning in Tel Ermaida area in central al-Khalil. They are Abdulfattahh al-Sharif and Ramzi al-Kasrawi.

2 Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers in al-Khalil

March 24, 2016, AL-KHALIL, (PIC)--

Two Palestinian youths were shot dead by the Israeli occupation troops on Thursday morning in the southern West Bank province of al-Khalil on allegations that they attempted to stab an occupation soldier.

According to the Israeli 0404 news site, the occupation soldiers fired multiple gunshots at two Palestinian youths after they carried out an anti-occupation attack in Tel Rumeida, in al-Khalil.

The Palestinian Health Ministry confirmed the piece of news but did not identify the casualties yet.

According to the PIC news correspondent, the occupation forces prevented Palestinian citizens from approaching the scene to evacuate the casualties to hospital, leaving them bleeding on the ground to death.

The Israeli army further banned Palestinian ambulance crews from assisting the two youngsters.

Israeli magistrate court of Occupied Jerusalem on Thursday extended the detention order against a Jerusalemite teacher at the Aqsa Mosque Hanadi al-Halawani to next Sunday.

The Jerusalemite sit-inner at the Aqsa, captive Halwani, was arrested on Wednesday right from the Israeli court while she was attending the trial of the other Jerusalemite sit-inner Sahar al-Natsheh.

At noon Thursday, Israeli forces arrested another Jerusalemite woman, Fatina Hussein, 62 years old, while she was studying the Holy Quran with other Jerusalemite women at the Damascus gate at the Aqsa Mosque. She was transferred to al-Qishaleh police center for investigation.

The three captives as well as many others have been barred from entering the Aqsa Mosque by Israeli forces for seven months without any legal justification.

So-called Parliament of the Israeli Apartheid regime (Knesset) passed on Wednesday a bill to deport families of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces and accused of carrying out attacks against Israelis.

The bill was initiated by Israeli Minister of Transport and Exploration, Israel Katz, and submitted to the Knesset by Deputy David Bitanem. It was supported by representatives from Likud, the Jewish Home, and other parties, including Yish Atid.

Israel’s legal adviser has previously rejected the bill, saying: “The deportation of families of attackers to Gaza or Syria might touch Israel’s position and lead to its global isolation.”

Katz also proposed another bill calling for the relocation of the families in the West Bank and putting more restrictions on their movement.

Speaking to the Israeli TV Channel 7, Katz said: “The bill got large support from the [ruling] coalition and from the opposition. We will put the bill for final approval next week. Terrorism will decrease as fast as we can approve this bill.”

He added: “This bill is not an alternative to the army, Shabak, police and security activities. It is a complementary measure to control the minors.”

_________________"Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend." - Bruce Lee
"Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth." - Buddha

Why does Israel get $3.1 billion in aid, and India receives $91 million per year??? The current population of India is 1,323,319,096 as of Tuesday, April 12, 2016 - or about $14.54 per Indian. As of 1 January 2016, the population of Israel was estimated to be 8 424 076 people - or $368 per Israeli. Why?

US “aid” to Israel is going to increase from 2017, going up to nearly $5 billion per year.

Last year Israel sold in excess of $5.7 billion worth of military hardware to nations around the globe—while raking in at least $3.1 billion in “foreign aid” from US taxpayers.

Defense industries mark slight increase compared to 2014; nearly 50% of contracts went to Asia, Pacific. This means that American taxpayers are in effect subsidizing the Israeli arms industry—even though America is technically bankrupt and has to “borrow” this money and repay it for decades to come.

Reports on Wednesday pointed to the move by the Israeli water authority *Mekorot, which has affected tens of thousands of Palestinians.

Quote:

1. Mekorot profits from Israeli control over a Palestinian captive market under occupation

The company supplies almost half the domestic water consumed by Palestinian communities in the West Bank, making it the largest single water supplier in the OPT. Mekorot’s control over the Palestinian water market was formalized and legitimated by the Oslo Accords, which obliged the Palestinian Authority (PA) to purchase water excavated from Palestinian land from the Israeli company. The Oslo Accords prevent the Palestinians from developing their own water and sanitation sector and erase the possibility of purchasing water from neighboring countries or international corporations. This imposed a state of dependency on the Palestinians, which Mekorot profits from.

2. Mekorot exploits Palestinian water sources, supplies the settlements and transfers Palestinian water across the Green Line

In 1982 the West Bank water infrastructure controlled by the Israeli army was handed over to Mekorot for the symbolic amount of 1 NIS. Ever since, the company functions as the Israeli government's executive arm for water issues in the OPT and runs a water network that is linked with the Israeli national network. Under the Oslo Accords the company may extract up to 80% of the Mountain Aquifer’s water, the only source of underground water in the OPT, for use within Israel proper and in Israeli settlement across the West Bank.

3. Seventy percent of the water allocated to settlements in the occupied Jordan Valley originates in Mekorot drillings

The company is the major and in many cases the sole supplier of water for household and agricultural use in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, in particular in the Jordan Valley. Mekorot also manages the water supply to the Israeli military bases in the OPT.

In 2008, 97.5 percent of the water supplied to the settlements in the Jordan Valley was designated for agricultural use. Intensive agricultural production in illegal Israeli settlements depends on the use of water and other natural resources from occupied Palestinian land. The establishment of water facilities by Mekorot enabled the extensive development of Israeli agriculture in the OPT and contributes to the profits made by settlements and settlers from crops and agricultural export.

5. Mekorot provides much more water to settlements than to Palestinian communities

Israeli per capita water consumption is more than five times higher than that of West Bank Palestinians: 350 liters per person per day in Israel and more than 400 liters per person per day in the settlements, compared to 60 liters per Palestinian per day in the West Bank.

This huge disparity can be illustrated by comparing the situation between adjacent communities. The daily per capita allocation in the Ro’i settlement (for household use only) is around 400 liters. In the nearby Bedouin community of Al-Hadidya, the per capita water consumption is less than 5 percent of this figure: only 20 liters (standard of World Health Organization (WHO): 100 liter per capita per day). Al-Hadidya is not connected to regular water supply, despite its proximity to a major pumping facility of Mekorot (Beka’ot 2). This unequal distribution of water between settlers and Palestinian communities actively contributes to the severe water crisis in parts of the West Bank.

6. To service settlers, Mekorot restricts water supplies to Palestinian communities

Particularly in the dry summer months, Mekorot reduces or temporarily cuts-off supplies to Palestinian communities while Israeli settlers next door continue to be supplied with unrestricted amounts of water. Some 230,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank (excluding East Jerusalem) enjoy a continuous flow of water all year long. In addition, Mekorot pipes connecting Palestinian communities are of smaller diameter, reducing the water flow and pressure, as opposed to adequately sized ones for Israeli settlements.

The basic price that Mekorot charges settlers and customers in Israel is NIS 1.8 per cubic metre water, compared to an average of NIS 2.5 per cubic metre for Palestinians.

8. Mekorot’s extensive pumping is reducing the water quantity in Palestinian springs and wells

Mekorot's over-extraction in the OPT has reduced the Mountain Aquifer’s current yield and future reserves and has caused potentially serious damage to the quality of the water supply for both Israelis and Palestinians. Excess extraction also resulted in a sharp drop in water quantity in Palestinian springs of the Jordan Valley.

9. Mekorot's policy and operations ignore the Green Line

As part of the information provided to the public, Mekorot presents a map on its website (link is external)of the National Water System, which shows all of the company enterprises. The Green Line is missing on this map, which reveals that Mekorot treats Israel and the OPT as one single territory.

Palestinian communities in the OPT are also missing on Mekorot’s map, with only two exceptions (Ramallah and Bethlehem).

In sum, Mekorot develops and maintains a water system, which strengthens Israeli control over the West Bank, favors settlers and ignores the basic needs and even mere presence of the local Palestinian population.

They listed the targeted areas as the municipality of Jenin, several villages in the Nablus area, and the city of Salfit and its surrounding villages.

Ayman Rabi, the executive director of the Palestinian Hydrology Group, was quoted as saying on Tuesday that in some areas, people had not received water for more than 40 days.

“People are relying on purchasing water from water trucks or finding it from alternative sources such as springs and other filling points in their vicinity,” he said.

“Families are having to live on two, three or 10 liters per capita per day,” he added.

The United Nations has said an average person would need to consume 7.5 liters of water per day.

The Israeli move to cut water supplies comes as summer heat waves have shot the mercury up to 35 degrees Celsius at some places across the occupied territories.

Jenin Mayor Ragheb Al Haj Hassan said that the water had been cut off without prior notice. “Residents suffer badly in this hot weather and at this time of Ramadan.”

“Israel and Israel only is responsible for the water cuts as agreements signed with Israel clearly state that Mekorot should provide the northern areas of the West Bank with their needs of water,” he said.

In 1967, Israel occupied the West Bank, East al-Quds (Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip, but withdrew from the enclave and laid siege to it in 2005.

Ever since the occupation, Tel Aviv has been enforcing restrictions on the amount of water supplied to the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

*Mekorot is the national water company of Israel, which supplies 90% of Israel’s drinking water and provides 80% of its water supplies. The company is state-owned.

Mekorot not only operates within Israel’s internationally recognized pre-1967 borders (i.e. within the Green Line), but also in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). It is the Israeli government’s executive arm in the OPT for water issues. In East Jerusalem and other parts of the occupied West Bank, Mekorot supplies water to the settlements. It also supplies a substantial share of the water consumed by Palestinians, who are prevented from developing their own water sector.

As a result, Mekorot is actively involved in conducting and maintaining the Israeli occupation._________________"Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend." - Bruce Lee
"Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth." - Buddha

The UN has said that the besieged Palestinian territory could become "uninhabitable" by 2020, as its 1.8 million residents remain in dire poverty due to the nearly decade-long Israeli blockade that has crippled the economy, while continuing to experience the widespread destruction wrought by the Israeli offenses, and the slow-paced reconstruction efforts aimed at rebuilding homes for some 75,000 of Palestinians who remain displaced following the last Israeli assault.

Some 900 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip continue to require medical attention as a result of permanent disabilities they sustained during Israel’s devastating 51-day assault on the small territory that began on July 8, 2014, according to UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees.

On the second anniversary of the war, the Gaza Strip’s Shifa hospital had 3,839 registered patients waiting for scheduled operations, more than half of which were classified as major surgeries, according to a statement published Monday by UNRWA, adding that surgical appointments were being scheduled for as far away as 2018. “Some patients are still suffering two years after their injury and need ongoing care. Many others are still waiting for prosthetic limbs. The state of prosthetics in Gaza is still very precarious,” Dr. Mahmoud Matar, an orthopedic surgeon at Gaza’s Shifa hospital told UNRWA.

UNRWA stressed in their statement that “The long waiting lists have left many frustrated, sometimes in unnecessary pain and facing health risks associated with delayed care.”

Meanwhile, a significant part of Gaza’s healthcare infrastructure remains severely damaged, which according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization (WHO) had already been near collapse prior to the start of the hostilities. Al-Wafa hospital in Gaza City and three primary healthcare clinics were completely destroyed in the war, in addition to 18 hospitals and 60 clinics that sustained damages. “To date, all of these facilities have been or are in the process of being repaired/reconstructed, with the exception of the al-Wafa hospital which requires major funding to proceed with reconstruction,” UNRWA said.

A total of 11,200 Palestinians -- including 3,800 children -- were wounded in the war, according to UN documentation.

Meanwhile, some 36,000 Palestinians -- 20 percent of the Gaza Strip’s population -- are estimated to require mental health support as a result of the war, according to the WHO.

UNRWA said the backlog in treatment was mainly due to the lack of skilled personnel in the Gaza Strip’s crumbling healthcare system. “This situation is partially a result of the (Israeli enforced) blockade, which limits outside training opportunities, and of the internal Palestinian divide, which has left public employees recruited by the de facto authorities, including health staff, without regular salaries.”

The Gaza Strip has suffered under an Israeli military blockade since 2007, when Hamas was elected to rule the territory. Residents of Gaza suffer from high unemployment and poverty rates, as well as the consequences of three devastating wars with Israel since 2008, most recently in the summer of 2014.

The 51-day Israeli offensive, termed “Operation Protective Edge” by Israeli authorities, resulted in the killings of at least 1,462 Palestinian civilians, a third of whom were children, according to the UN.

_________________"Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend." - Bruce Lee
"Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth." - Buddha

Launched this month, as much of the world was on holiday, Avigdor Lieberman’s plan for the Palestinians – retooling Israel’s occupation – received less attention than it should.

Defence minister since May, Lieberman has been itching to accelerate Israel’s annexation by stealth of the West Bank.

His “carrot and stick” plan has three components. First, he intends to sideline the Palestinian Authority in favor of a new local leadership of “notables” hand-picked by Israel.

Preferring to “cut out the middle man”, in his words, he will open a dialogue with supposedly more responsible Palestinians – business people, academics and mayors.

Next, he has established a new communications unit that will speak in Arabic over the heads of the PA in the West Bank and its Hamas rivals in Gaza directly to ordinary Palestinians.

An online campaign – budgeted at $2.6 million – will seek to convince them of Israel’s good intentions. The Palestinians’ problems, according to Lieberman, derive from corrupt and inciteful national leaderships, not the occupation.

And finally, his defense ministry will produce a map of the West Bank marking in green and red the areas where, respectively, “good” and “bad” Palestinians live.

Collective punishment will be stepped up in towns and villages in red areas, from which Palestinian attacks have been launched. Presumably night raids and house demolitions will increase, while closures will further curtail freedom of movement.

Palestinians in green areas will reap economic rewards for their good behavior. They will be given work permits in Israel and the settlements, and benefit from development projects, including the creation of Israeli-controlled industrial zones.

This week the Haaretz daily reported that Lieberman is convinced that all the Palestinians can be attributed to Abbas’ “reign of corruption”. In briefings he has stated that the Palestinian leader “doesn’t want to deal with problems of economics and employment. The entire system of management there has failed.”

It sounds like the musings of a 19th century colonial official on how best to prevent the natives turning restless. Ahmed Majdalani, an adviser to Mahmoud Abbas, told the Israeli media the new arrangements assumed Palestinans were “stupid and lacking self-respect” and could be “bought with economic perks”.

Lieberman’s longer-term goal is to persuade Palestinians – and the international community – that their aspirations for self-determination are unattainable and counter-productive

Israel has tried that approach before, as Palestinian officials pointed out. Decades ago, Israel sought to manage the occupation by imposing on the local population Palestinian collaborators, termed “Village Leagues”. Armed by the Israeli military, they were supposed to stamp out political activism and support for the PLO.

By the early 1980s the experiment had to be abandoned, as Palestinians refused to accept the leagues’ corrupt and self-serving rule. An uprising, the first intifada, followed a short time later.

Israel’s agreement to the PA’s creation under the Oslo accords in the mid-1990s was, in part, an acceptance that the occupied territories needed a more credible security contractor, this time in the form of the Palestinian national leadership.

Whatever Lieberman and others claim, the Palestinian leaderships in the West Bank and Gaza are the last parties to blame for the recent wave of Palestinian unrest. The attacks have been mostly carried out spontaneously by “lone wolves”, not organised groups. Many occur in Jerusalem, from which all political activity is barred.

Abbas has described the “security coordination” with Israel as “sacred”, aware that his PA will not survive long if it does not demonstrate its usefulness to Israel. His security services have subdued Palestinian resistance more effectively than the Israeli army.

Bereft of regional allies and a credible strategy, even Hamas have chosen quiet since Israel launched Operation Protective Edge, its lethal wrecking spree in Gaza in 2014. It has kept the tiny coastal enclave locked down. Rocket fire – one of the few remaining, if largely symbolic, ways to confront Israel – all but ceased long ago.

The silence from Gaza was briefly disturbed a week ago by a rocket fired by a small ISIL-linked group. Despite Hamas’s disavowal of the attack, Lieberman demonstrated his new big stick by bombarding government sites in Gaza in a show of force unseen over the past two years.

The futility of this approach – blaming the official leaderships for the roiling frustration and resentment of those they formally lead – should be self-evident.

Ordinary Palestinians, not officials, endure the endless expansion of settlements and the resulting takeover of their agricultural lands. Ordinary Palestinians, not their leaders, face daily abuses at checkpoints and in military raids. Reports at the weekend suggested soldiers were deliberately kneecapping youths at protests to permanently disable them.

Round-ups, torture, military courts that always find the accused guilty – these are the rites of passage for Palestinians in the West Bank. For Palestinians in Gaza, it is slow starvation, homelessness and a random missile rain of death.

An Israeli strategy that failed decades ago – before the PA even existed – is not going to succeed now. Social media campaigns and paltry handouts will not persuade Palestinians they are nothing more than a humanitarian problem.

They are not about to shelve their dreams of liberation just because Lieberman color-codes them in red and green.

Unreliable electricity, an ongoing blockade on building supplies, and a failing waste treatment plant have spawned a sewage crisis in Gaza that experts warn could permanently damage Palestinians’ access to clean water.

The crisis is now spilling over into Israel and threatening its water supply. According to an Aug. 25 report from Middle East Eye, floods of sewage flowing into the Mediterranean Sea have caused Israel’s Ashkelon desalination plant, the source of 20 percent of the country’s drinking water, to shut down at least four times in recent months.

In the report, Kieran Cooke wrote: “[E]ach day an estimated 90m litres of untreated or partially treated sewage flows into the sea in Gaza — only a few kilometres south of Ashkelon.”

Cooke continued:

“Tides and winds then disperse the sludge, taking a substantial portion northwards into Israeli waters. The sewage gives rise to blooms of algae which have threatened to block filters at Ashkelon.”

The most pressing issue, according to Cooke, is insufficient power to operate a new water treatment plant funded by the World Bank in northern Gaza.

Palestine’s sewage problems are one of many issues resulting from years of mistreatment under Israel’s illegal occupation. These problems have grown notably worse since Operation Protective Edge, Israel’s brutal 2014 attack on Gaza, which killed about 2,250 Palestinians, including 551 children, and left about 500,000 homeless.

“Poor sewage treatment in Gaza is the result of a rapidly expanding population, an infrastructure damaged during wars with Israel and a chronic shortage of electricity to run the wastewater plants that still function. In 2007, a sewage reservoir overflowed in a village in northern Gaza, drowning five people,” The Associated Press reported in May.

The health of Palestinians who cannot afford clean water is already suffering. The AP’s Fares Akram and Daniella Cheslow interviewed Eitemad Abu Khader, a Palestinian mother of four girls, who lives north of Gaza City in a neighborhood surrounded by pools of untreated sewage.

Another compounding factor is that Israel restricts Palestinians’ access to their own water supplies. While the World Health Organization recommends that each person have access to 100 liters of water a day, Palestinians living in the West Bank must make do with a daily average of just 73 liters.

A major obstacle to stemming the tide of sewage is Israel’s ongoing blockade on goods flowing into Occupied Palestine. A diverse array of crucial building materials, including cement, steel cables and ball bearings, are routinely blocked at the border. Even everyday supplies like crayons and musical instruments are frequently turned away.

According to an Aug. 16 report from The Los Angeles Times’ Rushdi Abu Alouf and Joshua Mitnick, “The lack of building materials and restrictions on generators and heavy machinery are also hobbling the rebuilding.”

Citing figures from Israeli human rights NGO Gisha, they reported:

“[F]rom the end of the war through the end of 2015, only about 14 percent of the construction materials needed to rebuild Gaza made it through to the area.”

In an Aug. 11 report from Al-Monitor, Eilon Adar, a hydrologist and the former director of Ben-Gurion University’s Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research, warned that time is running out to finish construction and provide electricity to Gaza’s waste treatment plant.

Adar told Shlomi Eldar, a columnist for Al-Monitor’s Israel Pulse:

“Gaza sends wastewater to the area of the nonfunctional treatment plant, causing the water level to rise. A virtual mountain of underground water has been created that will flow to the only place in Gaza that still has drinkable water. That water will become contaminated and then disaster will hit. Once [contaminated] water permeates potable water, it will be almost impossible to fix the situation.”

_________________"Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend." - Bruce Lee
"Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth." - Buddha

The bill, according to Israeli press, says that “a member of the security forces will not bear criminal responsibility, nor be interrogated with a warning, and will be immune to every judicial action in connection with an operation he carried out or did not carry out, or an act he committed or did not commit, before, during and after an operation, depending on whether the operation was or was not carried out as part of his assignment, or in preparation to carry out his assignment, as member of the security forces.”

The proposed changes also envision a mechanism to strip the immunity if the soldier abuses the mandate. Any soldier caught looting, vandalizing property, taking bribes, engaging in sexual offenses will not be granted immunity.

_________________"Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend." - Bruce Lee
"Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth." - Buddha